2002-04-10 - 10:33 p.m.
Thursday, 04.04.02
My first piece of advice to anyone visiting New York for the first time: Hire a car service to meet you at the airport. It�s pricier than a cab, but not by much, and it�s worth every cent--particularly if you�ve just gotten off a six-hour flight from California and are wandering around the terminal in a daze and can barely spell your last name, much less fight for a taxi at rush hour in Newark. Plus, if you�re lucky, you�ll get to ride into the city in a Jaguar driven by a strapping, darkly handsome young man named Alexei who speaks with a vaguely sinister East European accent that has you convinced he has about half a dozen deadly weapons concealed in his cufflinks. Does ol� Miguelito know how to make an entrance into the Big Apple, or what?
***
I check into my hotel at around 8 p.m. A quick perusal of the promo literature in my room reveals that the Overpriced Yuppie Martini Bar downstairs was formerly the barbershop where Albert Anastasia (of Murder Inc. fame) was gunned down in his chair in 1957. Apparently being the site of a mob hit is grounds for historical landmark status. I love this town already.
It�s late, I�m hungry, I�m feeling somewhat intimidated by the prospect of four days in a city which probably chews up and spits out a hundred would-be Evil World Dictators like me each morning before breakfast--and I figure that the only way to deal with it is to rush right in with all four wheels. So I hit the streets in search of Chinese food.
You know what makes me fall in love with New York almost immediately, more than anything else? The pedestrians. More precisely, the fact that they don�t scatter when they see someone in a wheelchair coming toward them. In San Diego or L.A. people see me on the sidewalk and act like I�m Gimpzilla attacking Tokyo--they duck into doorways, they grab their kids by the arm and scurry away, they freeze in place like frightened squirrels until the person walking behind them bumps into them. New Yorkers don�t give a shit, and it�s damn refreshing.
After about an hour I find a Chinese restaurant. Or, I�m reasonably sure it�s a Chinese restaurant. The waiter who seats me looks Hispanic and speaks some unfamiliar dialect that sounds as much like Esperanto as anything else. But the cute girl at the cash register is reassuringly Chinese, so I estimate the odds at about 50-50.
I see something mouthwatering on the menu right away. "I�ll have the mango chicken."
"Sorry, no have," says Esperanto Guy. "No mango chicken."
Goddamn it. What is this, a bait and switch tactic? Put mango chicken on the menu to lure in the tourists, then foist yesterday�s sweet-and-sour pork off on them knowing full well that they�ll be on a plane back home before the salmonella kicks in? To hell with that. I WANT MY FUCKING MANGO CHICKEN.
"Are you sure you don�t have it?"
"No have. No mango chicken."
Clearly, a second opinion is in order. I send Esperanto Guy away to get me some water and cruise on over to Cute Reassuringly Asian Hostess. "Excuse me--do you have the mango chicken tonight?"
Cute Reassuringly Asian Hostess smiles. Her English is as perfect as a UN translator�s. "Sure, of course we have it! I�ll get you some--it�s really good."
Damn if she wasn�t telling the truth, too. Obviously Esperanto Guy was just trying to keep all that juicy mangoey goodness for himself. He�ll rue the night he tried to keep Miguelito away from his mango chicken, believe me.
I considered offering the hostess a promising new job opportunity as a chef/masseuse/professional assassin, but I decided I�d already imposed on her good will enough for one evening. Maybe on my next visit.
***
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